Pages

Monday, January 16, 2012

Different Scales

I woke up this morning thinking about honesty and... equality of analysis. The differences in how we consider our own actions versus someone else's.

I had a friendship that ended some time ago. I couldn't tell you all the reasons it did, even if I knew them. But, in part, I know that they have always been angry because they feel I was dishonest with them. And, in the interest of full-disclosure... I was. In part, that was because I didn't know how to be honest about some things without betraying the trust of another. In other part, it was just easier in some things. (Nothing said meant to excuse... just to explain. I feel no pride in this.) But, it's always been curious to me the way they've never seemed to notice the things they were dishonest about towards me. That's never seemed to matter.

I ran across this in my notebook this morning:

"The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed on the same scales." --Aesop

and I thought, "Yes, that."

But, it's never enough for me to find a way to settle the past. What good are our experiences if we can't learn from them, as well as settle them? For it would be dishonest of me to sit here and tell you that I've never been guilty of these things, too. Thinking these things over this morning impresses upon me the importance of being honest about my own actions before allowing myself to be hurt or angered over the actions of others. What right have I to feel indignation over others' doings when they have a justifiable right to feel indignation over mine?